Ardi was a 110-pound, 4-foot female who’s fossil remains were found in Ethiopia. She is an early member of the human family tree that lived 4.4 million years ago, more than 1 million years earlier than Lucy. This is a truly amazing discovery that will add a treasure trove of information to our knowledge of human evolution.

Ardi has surprised scientists with many traits which do not appear in living African apes or in humans. Most surprising, scientist did not expect such an old human ancestor to walk upright. They expected them to be more of a knuckle walker like a chimpanzee. Ardi shows that humans and apes evolved quite differently from their common ancestor of about 6 or 7 million years ago.

Weird that this discovery was announced the same day I mentioned Lucy in my previous post about “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. Although the discovery of Ardi was officially announced on Oct 1st, the research has been going on for many years and involved 47 scientists from 10 different countries.

It will be interesting to see what the creationists have to say about Ardi.